


The Snow Queen

by MrProphet



Category: Frozen (2013)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 21:44:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1362817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Frozen is the property  of Disney.</p></blockquote>





	The Snow Queen

Much has been written on the reign of Elsa (I) the Great, Queen of Arendelle and the Northern Isles, and not a little of it relating to the tumultuous events surrounding her coronation at the age of 18. It has become received wisdom that Elsa I achieved power by chance, held it by luck, and weathered a diplomatic nightmare of her own making through little more than happenstance, but such is a perception informed more by revisionism than by sober historical consideration.

When the then-Princess Elsa was elevated to the status of Queen-Apparent as a child, following the deaths of her parents, Arendelle became isolated, surviving on native industry and the late King’s martial reputation, as well as its strategic location. On emerging from this period of withdrawal, the kingdom was rocked by the scandal of its Queen’s metaphysical gifts and not one, but two attempted coups d’etat y foreign powers, in the wake of which the foreign dignitaries Prince Hans of the Southern Isles and Eric, Duke of Weselton were forcibly expelled from the kingdom, the former deported in chains. Seen by contemporary Arendellean writers as an act of heroism, it is this bold step that later historians have interpreted as a naïve and petulant move which provoked a diplomatic storm and threatened the entire house of Arendelle. The truth is closer to the former interpretation, but runs much deeper, revealing not a childish inexperience, but a shrewd political mind.

That during the coronation crisis, both Prince Hans and Weselton made attempts to have the Queen assassinated for their own gain, is not disputed. Modern writers, envisioning the states involved in their current situations, present Elsa’s high-handed treatment of two princes of the world stage as little short of foreign policy suicide, but let us examine the decision with the eye of the times.

Prior to the isolation of Arendelle, the kingdom was the dominant power in the north, while Weselton was a humble trading port and its self-styled Duke little more than a robber baron with notions of his own importance which would not be realised until the emergence of Weseland as a major maritime steam power, some two centuries later. Neither, at that time, was the Duchy a dependent province of the great kingdom of Mirandy. The Duke had sought to establish his power by cornering trade in and out of the port of Arendelle City, offering little prestige and no more wealth than he could get away with in return, and had seized an opportunity with a flourish – if not an effectiveness – that would have done his pirate ancestors proud.

The Southern Isles presented a closer rival to Arendelle’s supremacy, and had been growing in status during the isolation, but Prince Hans was a minor member of the royal family, already noted for his scheming ways and unofficially banished by his brother, the King of the Southern Isles, in circumstances still shadowed in mystery today. Had Queen Elsa imprisoned a member of the royal family in Arendelle then it might have provoked sympathy, even outrage from his kin. Instead, he was handed back to his family to face their justice. His banishment was formalised, his titles stripped. He adopted the name of his grandfather, King Herbert, and the rest of his days were spent as a sell-sword in Mirandy and the other southern kingdoms.

By ejecting the Duke and sending the Prince to his family in chains, Queen Elsa struck a fine balance between a show of strength and a display of clemency. To have permitted the attempted assassination of the Queen and Anna, the Princes Royal to go unpunished would truly have been suicide, surrendering any pretence that Arendelle was a power to be reckoned with. Yet to hold the would-be killers might have incited sympathy and invited action against the kingdom. By throwing the problem back to Weselton and the Southern Islands, Queen Elsa issued a challenge that was hard to meet without an assault against Arendelle’s mountainous borders. It had long been accepted that the only way in or out of the kingdom was by sea, and even without the threat of a Winter of Mass Destruction descending on any who crossed the royal line, any attempt to storm the harbour would have been folly without at least two years of intensive training to muster a regiment of skate troops.

Even the distinction in the treatment of the two owed more to politics than to justice. The perceived inequity of treatment destroyed any threat of united action, the Southern Isles resenting the liberal treatment of the Duke, and Weselton angered by the Isles’ apparent willingness to act as Arendelle’s jailors.

While it is not possible to say for certain why any person in history acted as they did, the interpretation of Elsa as a canny diplomat and politician is of course supported by later events in her reign, which will form the basis for my next lecture.

**Author's Note:**

> Frozen is the property of Disney.


End file.
